Posted on: 14 September 2012

Painting; watercolour, botanical painting of a Custard Apple Plant, Calcutta, ca. 1785

The pictures made by Indian artists for the British in India are called Company paintings. This one was originally in the collection of Sir Elijah Impey and Lady Impey, who commissioned over 300 pictures in Calcutta between 1777 and 1782. Sir Elijah was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Fort William. He was a man of great intellect and wide-ranging interests. The Impeys were passionately interested in the flora and fauna of India. They formed a private menagerie at their house, where they assembled birds and animals. From 1777 they employed Indian artists to paint their collection. We know the names of three of these artists, but an unknown freelance artist working in Calcutta appears to have painted this picture around 1785.

Copyright: © V&A Images


 View Post on Facebook

Comments from Facebook

wow...beautiful art of "seetha phal" or "Ram phal"...

One of my favorite fruits...

What wonderful fruits India is blessed with

The Act of 1773 did not allow the Supreme Court to be above the Company.In 1775 Impey presided at the trial of Maharaja Nand Kumar for forgery(and hanged,inflicted at the very time he was accusing British Governor-General Warren Hastings of corruption), with which his name has been chiefly connected in history. His impeachment was unsuccessfully attempted in the House of Commons in 1787, and he is accused by Macaulay of conspiring with Hastings (Impey's mate from Westminster) to commit a judicial murder. Nandakumar and Hastings decidedly did not get along; the Indian believed he had been unfairly denied a plum career assignment. Hastings’ actual involvement in this circumstance is impossible to prove, but facts remain - Nand Kumar was Hastings’s enemy, that Chief Justice Elijah Impey was Hastings’s friend; that at a moment of grave crisis in Hastings’s life, when Nand Kumar was the most eminent witness against his name and fame, that witness was arraigned on a charge that was very old, that had been suddenly converted from a civil to a criminal charge.

It's such a good depiction. Not a fruit I enjoy - we have several trees here in the garden in Pune. Was interested when I arrived back today to be told that there'd been a good crop, but the household hadn't consumed the fruit this year, they'd left them for the birds. and so many different birds came an feasted that they were a joy to behold. I hope father-in-law is lookiing down from above and appreciating the legacy he created - there can't be many other people in this neck of the woods who would make such a decision.

it is the season of "seeta phal" therei is another variety name "ram phal" seetha phal is abondant in hyderabad and around forest.